Human Beings
have been having sex for a good number of years now, and the habit seems to be escalating.

With that
much practice firmly behind them you would think that people would no longer need help with matters of a sexual
nature.

The very
opposite is true.

But can we
learn from the past when it comes to our own sexuality? Well, no, not really, but there is no denying that the
average human finds the subject both compelling and fascinating.

People have
been so engaged by the subject over the centuries that we have plenty of records of their personal experiences
and observations.

Some races,
such as the Celtic nations. did not leave much information behind them as they continued an oral tradition, and
by that Wotta Tripp does not mean what you all think, but merely that they did not write anything
down.

If you are
out and about in Britain on a Saturday night you can still get an inkling of an idea about the way things might
once have been.

Fortunately,
or not, depending on your point of view, the Romans and Greeks were very fond of writing things down about their
sex lives, and also enjoyed making it the subject of plenty of murals, even in family homes, leaving us accurate
records of their explicit exploits.

For this
reason we will be dealing only with the frequently annoying habits of ancient Romans and Greeks. Think how
exhausting it would be to write about, say, the sexual habits and secrets of ancient India and Japan as
well.

Dame Wotta
Tripp will first have to recover from writing this helpful article.

Even the
mythologies of the Romans and Greeks are full of x-rated stories of love and betrayal, lust and
murder.

There is
plenty of ordinary hum-drum sex, as well as incest, homosexuality, rape, transvestism and necrophilia, just the
same as can be found in the media today, and sometimes next door as well.

Nothing
changes very much. It merely sways sinuously back and forth a little bit over time, wearing nothing but an evil
grin.

If you were
fairly well-off and didn't like your wife or husband, you could purchase a boy or a flute-girl as a sex-slave
and rent a room to keep them in.

These people
knew how to convince themselves that they were having a darn good time, and some of them actually were. It's
just a shame how often it was at somebody else's expense.

Beastly Behaviour

It's almost
as though humans just can't help themselves. Nothing is ever quite enough, and people get completely bored with
each other, even though most of them are agonizingly boring themselves.

So bored do
some in fact become that they turn to the animal kingdom for comfort and consolation.

This
behaviour is taboo for many excellent reasons, but people never learn, and there are still remote places, such
as Wales, Bolivia and the Ozarks, where nothing on four legs is safe from human ministrations.

The myths of
the world are full of such stories, with people professing paramours from among a variety of ungulate species,
and many more types besides.

Some people,
still not satisfied, entertained dalliances with satyrs, minotaurs
and even interdimensional beings, but no man was ever successful in seducing the unicorn, and a jolly good thing
that is, too.

Many have
thought they had a special secret lover, only to eventually discover that they had been tricked by an amorous
Djinn.

There is
simply no end to the excesses indulged in on Earth. People come here on a Saturday night from spiritually
underdeveloped planets just to watch.

Women
reported getting pregnant by snakes quite frequently in ancient times, and although historians take this to mean
that the ladies in question quite literally thought they had conceived a child with a serpent, it's very
possible that they were referring instead to the human father.

Most women
still have occasion to call at least one man a snake during their
lifetime, perhaps even a lot more than one.

On the other hand, there have long been a hidden race of intelligent snake people. There are accounts of them from
around the world and in the fabled India of long ago they were known as 'Nãgas'.

The offspring that were the result of human sexual unions with these beings were half human and half
Nãga.

Born with
inherent shape-shifting and magical abilities, the upper body of a human, scaly skin and sometimes a tail rather
than legs, such creatures were killed whenever possible and banished deep beneath the Earth's
surface.

Occasionally
a throw-back is born who is kept locked in a room, killed out of fear and ignorance or sold to a circus or
travelling show.

These poor
souls can be seen on You Tube sometimes.

At any rate,
becoming too closely familiar to any creature that isn't human, unless you too are inhuman (and I am forced to
wonder about some of you), is not the right avenue to go down when venturing off the straight and narrow
highway of life to explore the back roads.

The ancient
Greeks and Romans ought to have known that, and you jolly well should too.

No ifs, ands
or buts!

Homoeroticism

There is
nothing much new under the Sun, but there are no records or depictions of rainbow colored togas, chitons or any
other clothing surviving from ancient times.

This is
because they were not necessary. Not only would they have been gaudy for formal wear, but homosexuality,
lesbianism and bisexuality were perfectly acceptable under the correct circumstances.

That is
because the laws treated citizens, freedmen and slaves differently, and their rights differed widely
accordingly.

Lesbos

What a
holiday destination, and with lovely beaches as well! Fortunately, the island of Lesbos is the third largest
Greek Island, so it can handle a fair amount of tourism.

It is
beautiful, has a long, rich and varied history, several important archaeological sites and a petrified forest,
and is also of course full of Greeks, which is rather nice.

Because of
human nature, most people don't know these facts about fair Lesbos, named originally for the patron god of the
island.

Instead it
made its way into the minds of people everywhere as, and Wotta Tripp quotes only what she has heard with her own
ears over and over, "that island all the 'lezzies' come from".

Not only is
this startlingly ignorant, it also makes no sense whatsoever.

Sappho

Its
reputation is due to Sappho, a female poet of great repute who was born on the island around 630
BCE.

Most of her
work has been lost to the past, however some fragments have survived.

Lesbos at
this time was a cultural center, and Sappho was named as one of the lyric poets.

Exiled for a
period due to political activities, Sappho was an educated and wealthy woman born into an aristocratic
family.

Writing
innovative poetry and accompanying music for the lyre, she wrote love songs in the first person, which for the
times was unusual.

She received
the honour of being officially elevated from lyric poet to muse.

Her poetry
was full of homo-erotic content, and she was not censured in any way. It was accepted as perfectly normal, as
were the different types of love between men.

In fact, it
was often expected.

And it was
due to her unique poetry and her birthplace that the word 'lesbian' was coined, and with which the word
'Sapphic' is still associated.

If you book
a holiday on Lesbos in the expectation of finding thousands of naked lesbians on the white beaches you will be
disappointed.

There are no
more lesbians per square yard on Lesbos than anywhere else.

Who says
things have progressed? It's disappointing but true that gay people would actually find greater acceptance and
equality in various places and times in the ancient past - as long as they weren't slaves.

Not so for
the furry community or 'Trekkies', however, who in most eras would sadly have had no place left to hide but in
caves, high up and with a very good look-out.

The Meat
Market

Beauty
contests for the women were held at Olympia and other places, and the ladies could enter and 'go for the gold'.

Nobody knows
what this golden prize might have been, perhaps a wreath-like crown, maybe even an early sex toy, but the term
is still in use today.

Men too
could enter beauty contests in cities of the ancient world, and the winner had the thrilling honour of carrying
a ram around the entirety of the city walls on his presumably broad shoulders.

It is not
clear if the ram was used for a feast, as a sacrifice or if it was in fact also a sex toy. Who can tell, perhaps
it was all three.

Friends then
adorned these winning young beaux with colourful ribbons, and sometimes weapons were presented as
prizes.

Beauty of
face in women, but particularly in men, was equated with strength of spirit and character as well as good humour
in a startlingly inane way that is disturbingly similar to modern values and equates well with the shallowness
of Hollywood, and the world of fashion or professional sports today.

Body Image

The way that
people have presented themselves to each other has always been considered important.

Even two
thousand years ago people had mirrors and were shaving, plucking, oiling, perfuming, sculpting and arranging
everything to everyone's satisfaction.

There were
hairdressers, as well as people who sold precious oils and unguents, made cosmetics and created fine
perfumes.

There were
folk who designed and fabricated sex toys while others created more conservative adornments such as jewellery or
hair ornaments. There were designers of fashionable clothing and even gay husbands.

Some people
from the present would feel right at home back in the ancient world.

The
cosmetics frequently worn by women in both ancient Rome and Greece contained ingredients that were fairly
typical of both Europe and the Mediterranean at the time.

White lead
was used extensively to whiten the complexion, which was perhaps not the wisest choice, but expensive foundation
creams have been discovered that rival today's in quality.

Berry and
root juices were mixed into preparations to be used as rouge for the cheeks or to tint lips, saffron to color
the eye-lids and soot or the more expensive kohl to darken and accentuate both the eyes and
eyebrows.

They even
used heated curling irons, and young men sometimes got into this habit as well, curling their locks for the
girls and boys.

The wealthy
had slaves who were trained in massage, cosmetics application and the specialized cleaning of bodily
orifices.

The ladies
kept picatrices, who were young ladies qualified specifically to be expert hairdressers of pubic
hair.

Between them
all, they had everything covered.

Hanging Out at
the Baths

The public
baths in ancient Rome were a place to get somewhat clean if you were not rich enough to have your own bath-house
at home. They were equipped with saunas.

They were
also a place for exercising and socializing, so people from all strata of society visited them daily. Some of
them contained libraries, snack shops and gardens.

Public baths
were used as places for assignations between married lovers, unsuitable partners and of course for picking
strangers and acquaintances up.

Although
they were often placed near to brothels, sex with male and female prostitutes was available at most public baths
as well, and larger establishments might rent out private rooms to lovers who wished to meet in
seclusion.

Despite hot
and cold water and the vigorous use of strigils for scraping oneself and other persons with, the supple
imagination can only turn to the appalling lack of hygiene at the average baths, where dirty water was
frequently re-circulated over and over.

These places
were almost as filthy as our modern-day hospitals are.

In some
parts of the world today, saunas carry a similar significance, in other parts, not, but be careful when you're
out, all of you, wherever you live. There is a seemingly endless and world-wide array of exotic sins to indulge
in.

Wotta Tripp
knows that ancient sex toys were just as much fun for at least half of the people using them as they are
today.

Oils were
combined with such ground-up ingredients as nettle seeds, black pepper and mint and used as sexually stimulating
lubricants along with sex toys.

Many of the
toys and techniques in use today had already been invented, including the dildoe, a word designed to make even
grown-ups giggle foolishly.

They were
made of leather in those days. If you consider the Italian gift for crafting purses, shoes and other goods from
leather, and the attention they pay to detail, stitching and fine workmanship, you get some idea of where it all
began so long ago.

Women were
depicted in art using dildoes while alone, so clearly were experienced in attending to their own sexual needs
with or without a partner being present, and this may well have been a selected preference rather than
indicating the lack of a lover or husband.

Sandal-slapping was a term used to
describe the practice of loudly slapping ones lover's naked body with a leather sandal to increase
desire.

The astute
student of history will notice the involvement here of yet more leather goods.

It explains
a lot.

The Rigid
Male

The male
erection has been handled in a variety of ways in the past.

It was
considered by learned people, such as doctors, that erections were cause by air blowing up the male organ until
it became stiff, rather like that which holds so many ears apart in today's world. It seems that hot air has
risen higher in the human animal over the ensuing centuries.

Similar to a
balloon inflating, one can only imagine where they thought the air went to at a later point, as one would expect
strong gusts to be emitted at the point of satisfaction, rather than the result so many have come to
expect.

The lack of
even a small breeze seemed to sail right by them.

Like most
men today, neither did the ancients want to caught hanging around outside the bath-house with a visible
erection.

Most
especially if they were an athlete, gladiator, politician or some other similar form of entertainer, they might
wish to at least appear celibate, or even truly practice abstinence in order to conserve physical
energy.

This
potential social embarrassment was easily prevented by the simple action of piercing the foreskin with a sharp
and possibly unhygienic implement and inserting a fibula, a metal object similar to a cloak pin, or a modern
diaper safety pin, only hopefully without a duck or teddy bear decorating it. It was compulsory wear for male
slaves.

Of course,
there were ladies who occasionally paid to have a fibula removed from somebody else's slave.

But then
there were high-up officials and men with reputations to uphold who paid agents to fan out across the city and
find them male prostitutes and slaves with extremely large and possibly deformed
pleasure-parts.

Slaves often
had elaborate piercings, tattoos and even brands, but Roman and Greek male citizens rarely did. They were
considered Egyptian or Celtic habits which they did not wish to emulate.

For those
who had the problem of not being able to get aroused easily in the first place there were readily available
erotic novels and pictures designed to titillate the viewer.

Hadrian -
Typical!

Let us use
the Emperor Hadrian as an example of the times.

Hadrian had
a lover, a boy who was fourteen years old. The relationship continued until the young man was twenty, when he
promptly drowned in the river Nile during a boating party.

Hadrian
mourned him to the point of deifying him, building a lot of boring statuary and temples dedicated to his young
lover and even founding a city to the drowned boy close to the spot where he went under.

Who knows,
perhaps he had a guilty conscience?

This total
excess of grief was not befitting a man whose business it was to go to war and kill lots of people at once, but
if you consider that this was also the man who built a long meandering wall along the bottom of Scotland for no
apparent reason, perhaps it all makes a bit more sense.

Historians
tell us that 'Hadrian's Wall' was a fortification built to keep the Picts out of Roman-infested England, but any
fool can see that it wouldn't have kept a rabbit out, let alone a crack fighting team of fierce guerrilla
warriors.

Hadrian,
like so many historical and modern figures, was a barking-mad pedophile with a lot of sociopathic issues that
are not very well covered in the history books.

Ancient Love
Potions

People have
always made use of herbs, animal parts and objects that they believed have an aphrodisiac action, either through
their action on the body when ingested or applied, or through the reaction of sympathetic
magic.

They have
also used these techniques as anaphrodisiacs, which are designed to dampen-down or deter sexual desire or cause
impotence.

Poison was
very useful in such instances, if a little permanent in nature.

Flagellation
with nettles was used to enhance sexual desire.

As stings
from young nettle leaves can feel somewhat like wasp-stings, one can assume that sex was the only way to take
one's mind off the pain afterwards and was instigated by frustrated partners determined to have their way at
last.

During a
certain festival women who wished to become pregnant would allow young men, who would run around and around the
bottom of the Palatine, which was the middle hill of the Seven Hills of Rome, to whip them as they went by, as
this apparently improved their chances of conception.

As with all
cultures, body parts and secretions, such as toenail clippings, blood, semen, urine, hair and sweat were used in
magic spells, love potions, black magic and even medicines.

Many people
secretly employ such techniques even today.

Sex
Symbols

In Greece
athletes were lionized and much sought after as lovers, very much as they are today. In Rome, they loved
gladiators.

In fact,
sports terms were used in the discussion of sex, which was quaintly termed 'bed wrestling' by the
poetically-challenged masses.

Eros was the
patron god of the gymnasium, and that alone should tell us quite a bit.

Discus
throwers were much in demand, and this is because people found the throwing of the discus to be the sexual,
dangerous and highly erotically-charged act of a desirable ancient Greek bad-boy.

Nobody today
knows why this was so, and they probably didn't back then either.

One thing
they did know how to do was to live decadently, and they weren't
particularly shy about being forward, sometimes to the point of grotesque crudity, rather like that readily
experienced in North America today.

Sometimes
things took a darker more mysterious turn, however.

Bacchanalia

Dark deeds
were committed in the rites of Bacchus; today people just go to the pub.

Dionysus has
a lot to answer for, but his followers didn't seem to need very much encouragement to enact his rites out quite
a bit. Well, whenever they got the chance, really.

At one
point, only women were admitted into the Bacchanalian mysteries, but later on men were also
initiated.

The male
initiations were performed three times a month, and only after it was dark outside.

The men
being initiated at the rites were expected to fully participate by having sex with each other, and those who
refused were summarily executed, so you see they took it all rather seriously back then.

So we will
leave them there in the past, happily savaging each other.

Dame Wotta
Tripp hopes most sincerely that nobody is considering re-enacting any of the disturbing scenarios laid
out in this article, which was written for educational purposes only.

She does not
want to have to deal with the aftermath of such actions in the many future cries for advice which will
undoubtedly pour into her letter-box in the future.

If there are
not too many unsettling results from publishing this article, then Wotta Tripp will later cover the
unsavoury habits of other ancient peoples in even more diversified areas of the world.